Rotor blades, such as helicopter blades, often require adjustable, fine-tuning weights to reduce vibration induced by differences between rotor blades. The differences can be due to initial manufacturing, erosion/wear, repairs/maintenance, and/or weight gain due to moisture ingress. The weights are typically buried in the rotor blade or made flush to avoid performance losses due to aerodynamic drag. Many of the existing rotor blade balancing apparatus and/or methods of balancing rotor blades rely on threaded fasteners to retain the weight while in flight. Threaded fasteners large enough to retain the weights under high centrifugal force and the attendant structure required into which the fasteners thread tend to be relatively heavy and require safety features so that the fastener does not vibrate loose and depart in flight. Many of the existing apparatus use metal boxes surrounding the weights to help transfer the loads from the weights to the surrounding structure. These enclosures tend to be heavy. The access cut-out areas are often large, with a significant structural impact and need for additional reinforcement. Further, many of the existing apparatus use an abundance of parts, are costly, require excessive time during balancing, and are difficult to implement.
A rotor blade balancing apparatus, and/or method of balancing a rotor blade is needed to decrease one or more problems associated with one or more of the existing rotor blade balancing apparatus and/or methods.